Tempest Rising (18 page)

But still I didn’t stop. I couldn’t, not when everything inside of me was screaming for him to live.

Not Kona
, I silently pleaded, tears streaming down my face as I compressed his chest thirty more times. Not Kona, when I’d already lost my mother. Not Kona, when I still might lose my dad and brothers and Mark.

Not Kona, when all he’d ever done was try to help me.

Not Kona. Not Kona. Not Kona. The words were a rhythm in my head while I worked, repeating the same motions again and again. But eventually I grew lightheaded and my arms began to ache, my muscles trembling under the strain.

“No!” It was a cry from deep inside of me, from a place I was just beginning to recognize. “Damn it, no!” There had to be a way.

I leaned over him, preparing to press my mouth over his yet again. My tears slid unchecked and unheeded down my cheeks and onto his face, then rolled over his cheek as well. It was at that moment that I felt the soft exhalation of his breath on my face.

It was such a shock that at first I could do nothing but stare, breath held, as I waited—much longer than should have been necessary—for him to do it again. But he didn’t.

Had I imagined it, then, that soft pulse of air against my cheek? I had been so certain …

Suddenly an idea came to me—so wild, so outlandish, that I did everything I could to ignore it. But once it had taken root, I couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t there.

He needed water. Not air. Not chest compressions. Water. His only response since being hit by the lightning was when my tears had touched his face.

I lifted my head for the first time since I’d started CPR, stared at the water that was just beyond the rocks. It might as well have been a hundred miles away. The earth was still trembling around me, the sky still split with bolts of lightning. How was I supposed to get his massive body down to the water when the world around me had gone utterly insane?

I couldn’t, at least not without risking his being hurt worse. Which meant—I glanced around, looked for something, anything, that I might use … My gaze fell on the small, red bucket I had pushed aside earlier and I wondered just how much water he needed.

Before I could think better of my completely suicidal plan, I scooped up the bucket and dashed straight back toward the ocean. As I ran, the sand fell away from beneath my feet and each step I took was across rockier, more uneven ground.

The voice I had heard earlier was strangely absent, the low, compelling demand of it finally silent.
Is she gone, then?
I wondered warily.

But the storm was stronger than ever.

When I was only a few feet from the ocean, I tripped over the roiling ground. Fell. Climbed back to my feet as the world exploded around me and then ran some more. I had only minutes before Kona would slip away forever—I didn’t know how I knew that, but the same instinct that had told me he needed water also told me this, and I believed it.

I finally made it to the water’s edge and scooped up a bucketful of the churning, agitated water. As I did so, I looked directly into the waves and nearly screamed at what I saw.

A dark, eerie face stared back at me, just below the wild surface of the ocean. I screamed, stumbled back, yet couldn’t resist looking for it again.

But it was gone. Just another crazy trick of my imagination, I figured, as I turned back toward the rocks and started running. Or was something there, waiting for me? Waiting for Kona?

This whole thing was getting creepier by the second. And my father wondered why I didn’t want to turn mermaid? After tonight, I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to set foot in the ocean again—even to surf. God only knew what was out there.

Of course, I had to survive until tomorrow, which was seeming more and more unlikely as a crack opened up in front of me and I nearly pitched face-first into it. I stopped in time, but negotiating around it was slow going—especially since I was terrified the stupid crack would grow large enough to swallow me at any moment. It was a fear I would have laughed off at any other time, but in that moment, on that beach, the threat seemed all too real.

Don’t do it.
The voice was back.
You’ll kill him if you do.

I paused, fear a wild thing beating against my ribs. Was I making the biggest mistake yet? Would the water end any hope—

Yes! That’s it. Let the water go. Pour it out onto the beach. Forget about—

No! I pushed back at the voice, tried to get it out of my head. I was right. I had to be because there were no other choices. It was this or Kona would be gone forever—simply because he’d cared enough to follow me. Cared enough to stand between me and whatever hell was waiting out there when I didn’t know how to fight for myself.

A strange compulsion came over me then, one that had me suddenly needing to dive into the ocean, despite my dark feelings about it. Needing it more than I wanted to take my next breath—more than I wanted to save Kona or see my family again. Ignoring the impulse, I dragged myself up the beach one slow, halting step at a time.

With each foot that I moved up the beach, the wind grew harsher. Sand flew through the air, along with shells and kelp—strange but effective marine missiles, transformed from simple detritus to painful weapons with a stroke of the wind.

The shells slammed into me, razor sharp against my too-sensitive skin, but still I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. To do so meant death, my instincts screamed. Death to Kona and death to me.

I stumbled onward and finally—finally—made it back to the shoddy protection of the rocks. Kona was still lying where I’d left him. With a quick prayer that I was doing the right thing, I flung the water directly onto his wound.

The second the water hit him, the lesion began to sizzle. Kona gasped, his body jerking spasmodically on the cold, hard sand.

Relief swept through me and I fell to my knees beside him. “Kona. Can you hear me?” There was no answer. “Kona?”

He groaned so low I barely heard it over the rumbling thunder and crack of lightning. But it was there, and it gave me hope when I had just about given up. He didn’t awaken, though. And before my horrified eyes, the ugly black burn on his chest changed, opened up, became a jagged-edged laceration—as if he’d been cut with a serrated knife.

Blood began to gush from the opening.

For long seconds I did nothing but stare at it, then raised my head and instinctively glanced around for help. But, of course, no one had suddenly appeared in the last five minutes. When I had fled the party, I’d run far and fast up the beach until I was in a secluded area, with no houses or hotels in sight. No one lived near here and the storm was keeping any visitors away. I was completely on my own.

Muttering one of Logan’s favorite—and most vile—curses, I whipped off my halter top and pressed it to the wound, trying desperately to stanch the flow of blood.

This was good, I tried to convince myself as I fought off hysteria for the second time that night. It was better. Kona was jerking around as if in pain, but that was a huge improvement from where he’d been. At least it was proof that he was still alive.

Which was much better than being dead. But as blood soaked through the yellow fabric and coated my fingers, I wondered how long I could keep him alive when he was bleeding this copiously.

I pressed harder, but my halter top was saturated—unable to take any more blood at all. Why hadn’t I worn a turtleneck? It was February—who wore a halter top in February?

Use the sand.

The thought came to me in the same way the one about the water had—from a place deep inside me that I hadn’t known existed before tonight.

Without giving myself a chance to think, I scooped up handfuls of sand and packed them into the gaping hole in the center of Kona’s chest. Wincing, I tried to ignore everything I knew about bacteria and open wounds and focus instead on covering the entire cut with sand.

The bleeding slowed to an angry ooze, but Kona was getting paler by the second, the involuntary movements of his body becoming smaller, harder to distinguish.

It wasn’t enough. Nothing I was doing was enough. Kona was slipping away, my grand idea of using water to help him causing him only pain instead.

What had I been thinking? Following my instincts? What instincts? The same ones that had had me running from my own party? The same ones that had caused this entire mess?

For a second I contemplated running back to the house. My father could help—but I was too far away. The way Kona was bleeding, there was no way he would make it long enough for me to run home and back again. Besides, I wasn’t sure how I would make it through the lightning and pitching earth when I’d barely made it the distance to the water and back.

That was it. The thought ripped through me. Kona was a water creature. He needed more water—a lot more water than that stupid bucket could carry. It wasn’t that the water I’d gotten earlier hadn’t helped him—it was that it hadn’t been enough.

He needed to be immersed in the sea if he had any chance of healing at all.

Which meant his only chance was for me to get him into the water. I poked my head out from the rocks, nearly got it sliced off when a lightning bolt struck inches from where I was. How the hell was I supposed to get him down there, when I had barely managed to do it on my own?

I glanced back at Kona and knew I didn’t have a choice. While he was breathing on his own, each inhalation was shallow and rattling. It was either this—a last-ditch attempt to save him—or sitting there watching him die, for good this time.

Cursing my mother, my gifts, and whatever else was responsible for landing us in the middle of this whole freakish nightmare, I crouched behind Kona and grabbed him under his arms. Then I began to pull—and nearly fell over with the first tug.

He was a lot heavier than he looked—and he looked pretty heavy. Still, it wasn’t like there were so many other options floating around. So I tugged and pulled, yanked and wiggled him slowly down the sand as the world around us went completely insane.

I’d thought it was bad before, but what happened next really was the stuff nightmares were made of. The sand came alive around us, tried to grab on to my ankles, tried to anchor Kona to it with talons of steel. I ignored it, told myself it was just more mind games from the hideous sea witch thing that liked to lurk inside my head. It wasn’t nearly as easy to ignore the rawness in my ankles, from where I yanked and pulled against the abrasive sand. But I couldn’t let Kona die for me, I just couldn’t.

I took a few more steps and nearly sobbed with relief when I realized the water was closer than I had expected. Once again it had come up the shore to meet me, only this time it brought salvation instead of certain death. I didn’t pause to think about how strange it was that the water seemed to sense my desperation.

I dragged Kona the last few feet to the oddly high tide, heard the witch—or whatever it was—screaming and uttering vile threats inside my head. I ignored it like I had the clutching sand. There was no other choice.

I took my first step into the roiling sea, and pain exploded through me as the salt water licked at my bleeding ankles. I bit my lip to keep from screaming—or worse, whimpering. Then I moved deeper to ensure that Kona was submerged up to his neck.

But the second I got him all the way in, the second the ocean touched his wound, wrinkled black hands reached up from the water and grabbed his arms and legs, pulling him straight down below the surface.

Chapter 15

I did scream then, Kona’s name—over and over again.

Then I plunged into the ocean, searching for him in the storm-tossed waves. I dove under the water until my lungs ached and my eyes burned, looking for some sign—any sign—of him. But he had vanished, and with him the frightening creatures that had pulled him under.

I surfaced close to shore, sucked huge breaths of air into my starving lungs, and realized with a start that the storm had vanished. The sky was clear and the ocean calm.

Had they gotten what they’d come for, then? Was Kona their objective all along, with me only a pawn?

But I remembered the voice, remembered the urgency as she’d demanded that
I
come to her. No, Kona hadn’t been her objective. I had—he had sacrificed himself to save me. The guilt was nearly overwhelming, the desperate need to find him and save him even more so.

I couldn’t leave him with those hideous things, not without at least trying to get him back. He deserved better than that. And every second I was sitting here, treading water, they were getting farther and farther away.

Taking a deep breath, I dove under the water once again. I knew I didn’t stand a chance of catching them as a human, but I was completely unsure of how to be mermaid. Just the thought of turning made me sick, but Kona was out there, and he needed me.

For a moment, I saw him the way he’d looked the night before—his eyes naked with his emotions for me. My feelings for him welled up inside of me and I knew I’d do anything—even this—if it meant saving Kona from the sea witch’s clutches.

There was only one problem. I’d spent so long fighting the transformation that now that I temporarily welcomed it—now that I needed it—I had no idea what to do.